A Survey of American Media Coverage of African Democracies: 1994 – 2004
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Page 1 6/28/2005 A Survey of American Media Coverage of African Democracies: 1994 – 2004 Prepared for The African Presidential Archives and Research Center African Presidential Roundtable 2005 Johannesburg, South Africa April 8, 2005 INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this survey is to catalogue and characterize the coverage of African democracies by select major American media outlets. This survey is indicative of the continuing challenges faced by African democracies to get fair and balanced coverage in the American press. And this work addresses an issue that has been documented in previous studies.1 The data – based upon both quantitative and qualitative analysis – points to a decidedly negative bias in news coverage of African democracies. The coverage does not accurately or completely reflect current trends and developments toward democratization and free market reform on the continent. METHODOLOGY: This study focuses on 14 countries that are tracked in the center’s State of Africa Report. The countries are: Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, 1 Previous studies on biased coverage of Africa and the developing world include: “TransAfrica Forum Issue Brief: Press Coverage of Africa, December 2000,” www.transafricaforum.org and “Viewing the World: A Study of British television coverage of developing countries,” July 2000 Department for International Development, www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/viewworldsum.pdf. The role of media also received significant attention in British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recently completed “Commission for Africa: Action for a strong and prosperous Africa,” see www.commissionforafrica.org. See responses section. Page 2 6/28/2005 Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. The study selected five (5) print media: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and U.S. News & World Report. These publications were selected because they are national in scope (USA Today, US News). They also influence news coverage nationwide, and are considered sources of record for large readerships (Times) and strategic constituencies like the U.S. federal government and policy makers (Post), or corporate executives and market investors (Journal). All have significant Africa reporting capacity via foreign bureaus and or correspondents. The media study is not exhaustive, and the news items were compiled in the following manner: • Ability to search articles via news outlet’s own online archive • Country name listed in the headline • Ability to read headline and further information, including accessing full articles • Articles appeared from Jan. 1, 1994 to Dec. 31, 20042 In total, 2,706 news items – by lined articles, news briefs, editorials and op/eds or letters were reviewed and placed into 10 categories: Category Total Headlines Elections/ Politics 583 Socio-Economic Development 163 Foreign Aid/ Investment 202 Education 20 Visual Arts/ Music/ Religion/ Culture 223 Persons Profiled/ Other 201 2 There were two exceptions to these guidelines: WSJ articles for 1/1/94 to 12/31/95 were accessed through Factiva, an online archive run by the newspaper’s parent company Dow Jones and Reuters. US News articles were searched under the headline term “Africa,” and then categorized by subheads or search terms by country name. Page 3 6/28/2005 Travel/Tourism and Sports 269 Poverty/Economic Underdevelopment/ Health 119 Conflict/ Corruption/ Crime 773 HIV/AIDS 153 TOTAL HEADLINES 2706 Finally, a word should be said about the 10-year time frame of this study. This ten-year period was selected as the defined period for study because it is thematically important. This critical decade of 1994 to 2004 was an era of dramatic change relative to democratic and free market reforms. But more often than not, media coverage defined this period based on episodes of violence – wars in Angola and Congo, among other places - and the genocide in Rwanda. Though winning the peace is an important news story, decidedly less coverage has been given to the affects of the first non-racial, democratic South African election in April 1994, the return to democracy in Nigeria, expansion of true democracy in Kenya, sustainability of democracy in Botswana and other countries, as well as other institutional changes like the formation of the African Union. However, the results of this survey indicate, this trend of democratic and economic growth and expansion was often reported in terms of turmoil and disaster. FINDINGS (Quantitative): More than one out of four articles reviewed – 773 – were about conflict, corruption, or crime. The second largest category – with 583 articles – was elections and politics. Quantitatively, this breakdown suggests a balance in coverage. However, a qualitative analysis revealed many of the articles reported elections as less- than-democratic. More will be said about this in the qualitative section. The total number not only revealed a large percentage of articles that might generally be categorized as negative, but also reflected inequitable coverage of positive developments. For example, the smallest category was education with only twenty (20) articles. APARC’s State of Africa report, in 2003 highlighted education advances on the continent including: Page 4 6/28/2005 • Botswana reported a literacy rate of 90 percent • Kenya enrolled an additional 1.7 million children in primary education • Enrollment in Ghana’s teacher training colleges rose to 8,500 from 6,000 in 2000 • More than 600 new classrooms were constructed in Malawi3 Neither these gains, nor similar gains, from 1994 to 2004 were reported in the more than 2,700 items surveyed from The Times, The Post, The Journal, USA Today or US News. Not only were the total items reviewed negative, an additional adverse effect was that the distribution of news items leaned heavily towards a few countries to the exclusion of the others4. South Africa dominated the coverage with 1145 news stories, or 42 percent of all the coverage surveyed in the period. It might seem positive that so many articles were on South Africa, but statistically, some negative trends emerged. First, with so much coverage of South Africa, other democratic countries received substantially less coverage. For example our survey catalogued 202 articles in the foreign aid/ investment category, 148 of those items were about South Africa. Second, the focus on South Africa obscured positive gains elsewhere on the continent. There were 153 news items in the period on HIV/AIDS, and 115 were on South Africa, much of which chronicled the problems with the pandemic in that country. So, both market advances, and economic reforms in other countries, as well as progress against the HIV/AIDS pandemic receive substantially less coverage as South Africa predominates. Country Total % of Name Headlines Total Benin 14 0.517369 Botswana 34 1.256467 Cape Verde 6 0.221729 Ghana 86 3.178123 3 APARC’s State of Africa report has been produced for the years 2002, 2003 and 2004. Each year a “Highlights” fact sheet is produced, bringing attention to specific achievements in African democracies in the areas of education, politics and economics. 4 See Appendix of “Headlines” for total distribution of the 2,706 news items by country. Page 5 6/28/2005 Kenya 349 12.89727 Malawi 31 1.145602 Mali 52 1.921656 Mauritius 4 0.14782 Mozambique 99 3.658537 Nigeria 641 23.6881 Senegal 67 2.475979 South Africa 1145 42.31338 Tanzania 94 3.473762 Zambia 84 3.104213 TOTAL 2706 100% FINDINGS (Qualitative): A cursory review of the headlines reveals a decided bias in the American media’s coverage of African democracies. A letter to The Washington Post (April 24, 2004) entitled “South Africa’s Struggles,” offers a pointed summary of the viewpoint reflected in the media’s coverage of Africa. While written in response to a specific Post article it offers insightful commentary on media bias in general: Yes, South Africa faces enormous challenges. But we are far from the only society in which unemployment, AIDS and crime would be rated as the ‘most pressing problems’ in opinion surveys. Whence the assumption that our democracy is threatened by these things? Might it be related to another assumption – that Africa is doomed to fail? The not-too-subtle assumption that South Africa – and by extension African democracy – is doomed to failure began to show up right at the time of the first democratic elections in South Africa’s history. The New York Times, right after elections published an article entitled, “After all the Buildup, the Vote is a Visual Letdown; Near-news in South Africa cannot compete with disaster and display,” (April 27, 1994, Sec. A9). The article reported the election had “produced no made-for-television extravaganza,” despite being the first multiracial election “charged” with “history and portent.” The Times followed up, publishing stories like: “Blacks in South Africa Turn to Vigilantes as Crime Soars,” (Nov. 27, 1995, Sec A1), “Drugs, Guns and Vigilante Justice in South Africa,” (Sept. 20, Page 6 6/28/2005 1996, Sec A4), “On South Africa’s Roads, A Grim Harvest of Death,” (Dec. 26, 1997, Sec A10), “Young, Vulnerable and Violated in the New South Africa,” (July 12, 1998, Magazine). As late as 2003, The Times ran an article entitled, “Toddler’s Killing Exposes Ghoulish South Africa Practice,” which suggestively implicates the entire country or culture. The article, however, states, “Muti killings … are still occurring, although most citizens are revolted at the custom and deny having deep-rooted superstitions … public outrage is gradually replacing fear.”5 The New York Times’ picture of South Africa is a portrait of disfunctionality. South Africa has had one of the highest rates of rape, including child rape in the world. South Africa has had one of the highest per capita highway fatality rates worldwide, and South Africa has had a murder rate ten times higher than the U.S.